30 April 2012

This photograph was left on the moon

On April 23, 1972, Apollo 16 astronauts Charlie Duke and John Young embarked on the third and final EVA of the mission, exploring
the Descartes Highlands via Lunar Roving Vehicle. During the EVA,
before setting up a Solar Wind Collector, Duke placed a small family
photo he had brought along onto the lunar surface and snapped a few
photos of it with his Hasselblad film camera. This is one of the
photos.

The portrait shows Charlie, his wife Dorothy, and their two sons Charles
and Thomas. It looks like they are sitting on a bench in the
summertime... It presumably still sits there today, just inches away from Charlie’s boot print — which, presumably, is also there.

To know that a family photo is resting upon the surface of another
world is nothing short of amazing… while the missions to the Moon were a
testament to human endeavor, it’s small things like this that remind us
of the people that made it all possible.

12 comments:

I'd bet the image is very degraded (if it's legible at all) since color prints in the 1970s used dye-based color. The intense UV light on the Lunar surface would likely have obliterated the image's light-sensitive colors quickly.

and the winner for that century's most egocentric parent goes to....what purpose did that serve? now I wonder what else they did that they did not share pictures of...looks like litter to me (pun intended)

Complete nonsense. The temperature on the moon is what in the direct sunlight? Yet this picture rivals the Fatima visions for miracles . On EARTH if you put a photo In sunlight it will ruin very quickly. Is moons temperature at the point of boiling water or not? If this picture doesn't degrade then other than an air supply an astronaut doesn't need his space suit. Are the moon landings a fraud?

yup.. leaving your stuff on multiple planets.. not smart. first thing I thought was LITTERBUG. fine, put it down, snap pics.. but pick up after yourself cause your mom and the maid don't have a space ship to do it for you.

I understand your sentiment, but look at it this way. Suppose the Mars rover descends into an unexplored Martian crater - would you rather it found a) nothing unusual, or b) pix of the family of an alien nonhuman race that had previously visited and departed?

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